hkabat-forum-threads Hong Kong / Asia BAT team

[mcarch 15]

I Love the lot! Good Job!

[evers 0]

how about a hk style bus stop?

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Ok, here's a quick demo pic to illustrate a possible application of the overhanging ploppable lots. Wait a minute, I lied - here are two pics:

As usual, I'm sure you will be able to come up with something far nicer. The NAM Ped Mall tiles can be used in such a situation, and of course park and plaza pack's such as soldyne's Urban Beautification Packs or jeronij's diagonal lots. If you want the complete 6x6 arrangement, you'll have to grow this big bad sucker.

[mightygoose 92]

more great work guys, you are an asset to simtrop, and this thread should be a sticky here godammit

[Skyfire2275 23]

@ T Wrecks: The lots look great! Especially the non-overhanging one! Wow! The overhanging lot seems to bit a bit plain on the roof of the podium of the building. I assume that in order to fix that you would need some props that are rendered off centre or something like that...

@ paulvmontfort: The buildings look great.

@ bixel: I agree with T Wrecks that the textures on the roof are a bit too bright, but other than that the building looks great!

@ SimFox: Looks good, keep up the good work.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Well, as long as we update often enough, the effect is the same.

Seriously, though: I don't recall having to flip to the second page to see this thread, so I guess there's no danger of anyone missing this thread. And I dare say that most of those who have seen it once will probably check back often.

Ok, back to topic: Here's another little update from the Pacific Place front. I hadn't planned to make a dependency-free lot this time, and in fact, I had just written a paragraph for the readme where I said that the building is next to impossible to complement with the default stuff. That's when I thought: "Is it really? Have I tried?" After 20 minutes, I had managed to find a simple scheme and whip up this basic, unspectacular little lot without any dependencies. I made it a 6x5 in contrast to the 6x6 lot with dependencies.

I hope this is a satisfactory compromise for all you guys out there who don't like dependencies.

Yet another note concerning Pacific Place: As you can see, the Conrad is oriented towards a corner. The J.W. Marriott has the same footprint (6x6), but it faces just the opposite corner. This will give you a tad more control when you want to grow one of them at a specific spot. There aren't that many 6x6 high-density, high-capacity  CS$$$ corner lots, I guess...

[Fantail 0]

Conrad sure is looking great, good job as all ways.

[Skyfire2275 23]

@ T Wrecks: Looks excellent! Since I don't use any tree/terrain mods, this would fit into my cities perfectly! Is it going to be possible (ie: within the constraints of the BATs) to make a mega-lot the entire Pacific Place with all buildings in there appropriate relative positions (disregarding the hillside gradient)?

[T Wrecks 10,210]

I'd wait with that, skyfire. Maybe Paul is cooking up more in his secret kitchen than we are aware of... let's say I heard some rumours...

[mightygoose 92]

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, that would be teh win omgzorz you guy have teh hax

[Skyfire2275 23]

I can wait, T Wrecks.

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, that would be teh win omgzorz you guy have teh hax quote>

Translation please, mightygoose, lol.

[paulvmontfort 617]

@ T Wrecks: As I prefer the version with the dependencies, could you include them both (with and without dependencies) in the final package?

[WeirdOne 0]

Excellent buildings.

I absolutely adore the large complexes (especially the Garden Estate one that was released). I'm going to start a new CJ that makes *EXTENSIVE* use of your HK lots in historic districts. It blends amazingly well. I got your Sham Wan to grow, but was abandoned. I'm disappointed.

Keep chugging with those complexes. I absolutely adore them. I'd love individual ones like Garden Estate.

Again, great work. I love your buildings. All of you!

[T Wrecks 10,210]

@ Paul: Yes, yes, yes! That's the way I am packaging it - the package is 85% complete, btw. Both J.W. Marriott and Conrad International will offer downloaders the choice to use a version with or a version without dependencies, and I'm planning to stick to this scheme with the Shangri-La and 1 & 3 Pacific Place as well.

[bixel 1,228]

@ Twrecks Your LOT work is progressing to the art of a Japanese Zen garden. Absolutely beautiful and enticing without too much flare.

@ Paulvmontfort I am so glad to finally see these creations come to life, as some of the 1st buildings in the HK/ASIA TEAM to be created I am glad they will finally make it on the STEX.

@ WeirdOne As concerning the Sham Wan, I got one city of 200,000 with 3 in them and 1 Arch without being abandoned. The Trick to growing these behmoths is to plan for it and not over zone the high density. Usually I will plot 2 or 3 locations for the 6x6 Sham Wan/Corner Arch, then I wait and do not zone anything else except Commerce and Industrial. Soon one or the other will grow. Then I check my RCI data or use Equinox's/Superstar's RCI mod tracker. If R$$ or R$$$ falls drastically after construction I de zone the other 6x6 lots, until demand rises.

Please anymore suggestions on the Tung Chung Crescent?!?, I actually feel the roof is not too bright and I am ok with it, I am still willing to do another re-render but I need more than just a white roof top problem. I think I will do some work on the new 3D flora and textures, as I am not willing to create an intricate cutom LOD on this (It already has one, conformed to the boundries of the towers). So I may work on that today...also I noticed some extra building-wall thingy in one of the photos of mine, so I may go ahead and BAT that as well.

My biggest need right now is some photos of the MTR, bus station located just outside of the crescent, I know there is one, but I only got a crappy fly-by view of it and its quality is too low and tiny to learn anything from it. My goal is to provide the Tung Chung Crescent with its MTR bus stop as a extra peice or addon. Tung Chung Crescent is 8.39 megs, so hopefully I can complete the package just under 10 meg.

[WeirdOne 0]

@ bixel Can you please provide me with some links to sites about the big HK Complexes? I'd really like to know more (maybe start batting myself). Also, are any more on the plans for the future. I absolutely adore them!

[cowkilla 12]

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=82214

^^good place for pictures of hong kong!

[bixel 1,228]

@ Thanks cowkilla

@ WeirdOne For HK Public estates and the like I use this site for reference, http://www.housingauthority.gov.hk/en, click on the interactive map and territories. Sometimes you can google a complex by name and get the floor plans.

[Monteferro 4]

Hi all,

I basically quit ST about a year ago but after looking through this thread, I've decided to come back and do what I can to help out. The work shown here is awe-inspiring - SimCity 4 has an obvious shortage of Asian buildings and you guys have done a great job in trying to fill that void.

Anyhow, I'd like to contribute by resurrecting an old Hong Kong BAT that I've been doing on-and-off for the past 1½ years. Some of you guys may remember it because I posted it on a thread a long time ago. So here it is folks... the grand old Legco Building.

I still have a long way to go but most of the modelling is done - it just needs the small details like windows, roof junk and statuary and then I can move on to the texturing and nightlighting.

[HONG KONG 74]

Monteferro:

Welcome back, mate   Let's build Hong Kong!!

bixel:

  

 

[paulvmontfort 617]

the Marriott Hotel is now available for download.

PS. T Wrecks: I had to ajust the readme slightly because you had written 'roead' instead of 'road'

EDIT:

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Paul: Thanks for fixing that. I have noticed the mistake in the meantime - when I made the readme for the Conrad International, I finally found that typo. I also found a missing bracket, and there may be other minor typing errors.

I have grown both Marriott and Conrad; pictures are attached to this post. 1IFC refuses to show up so far. Since I probably have enough suitable spots and enough demand by now, I'm going to add The Centre, HSBC, Central Plaza and 2IFC to my plugins soon and see if I can get them.

Bixel: Any chance of seeing these towers as standalone buildings? Now that I'm playing a modern-styled city with skyscrapers for the first time, I noticed that the most universally useful residential releases for me are Manhattan Heights and your two 2x2 HK Tower Packs. You might just spot some of them on the pictures below...

Unfortunately, the HK Garden Towers are too small to be used in a downtown area. I suppose it's not possible to scale the storeys of the main towers taller?

I got The Arch 1 (the 6x6 one) growing three times at a place in the outskirts I had reserved for onlyplace4's Carlton House. The patch I have reserved for The Arch gets occupied by -guess what- zillions of Carlton Houses instead.

I haven't succeeded in growing Dynasty Court so far, either. But I keep trying. I want that pink sucker!

Monteferro: Wow, you are honouring everybody with your decision to become active again, and that building you showed is an outstanding model for sure. Welcome back!

Everybody: Ok, here are some screenshots.

The first one shows the first (and so far only) Marriott I've grown:

These pics show the Conrad while it grows out of the ground...

...and finished!

[mightygoose 92]

this is all great work you guys are really cranking it up again lol

[paulvmontfort 617]

Things of the team i've grown so far:

Harbourside

Residential packs (all, also the new ones)

Manhattan heights

Liberte Complex

Sham Wan tower

Arch 1 and 2

HSBC

Central Plaza

the Centre

1 & 2 IFC

Jardine House

Far East Finance Centre

BTW: the Carlton House also grows on medium density zones

[bixel 1,228]

Wow welcome back Monteferro! Your building looks great. None of us have taken a step towards HK's older Landmark yet so I am very glad you are here to help. We also got some new people on the team doing buildings from Shanghai to Japan, so this is a really great team.

@ Hong Kong Those are great pics, just what I needed, now all I have to do is find somebody that can make a diangonal TE highway that goes through that MTR center (where it crosses the Highway part). Yep, I might convert a couple towers on their own, since Tung Chung seems to be filled with a bunch of them of like design, should be pretty easy just a few modifications.

[Skyfire2275 23]

Well, here's my small update on Langham Place: I removed the patio stuff... all of it, including the doors/stairs. I added stuff to the roof although I still need some fine details as well as textures. I also need to add new doors to where I removed the old ones. I fixed the size of the hemisphere (it was too small earlier) and redid the lattice over it as the first was just an experiement from Ardeclia's tutorial. Other than that nothing else is going on the roof from what I can see in the picture that HONG KONG put on the previous page (or maybe two pages ago?). Click to enlarge:

http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/top_newest.PNG

How is this? Also, on the smallest curve surface at the bottom centre, you can see that the reflexion looks hopelessly fake for a curved surface. The good news is that the vertical seam is gone. I still cannot get the vertical lattice to look right. Whenever I preview it, even if each segment is an exact copy of the others, they look drastically different in the preview. I am having the same problem with the CKC as well.

[bixel 1,228]

@ skyfire your roof cranes look dynomite!!! Awesome, I like the spare real-life roof look, seems as though the texture is working out nice as well, for the verticle lattice maybe extrude a triangle? > have the pointy part facing out, through the windows? Maybe that will work. I know I know its creates more polys, but the over all effect might work.

[SimFox 804]

Monteferro:

Great model! Just as 2Ch.simplayers bats it would certainly add to the otherwise all-modern buildings of the group.

Skyfire:

That’s much better.. And also glasswall texture seems to be more appropriate. One suggestion though may be you could make those SunShades a bit wider… What is you poly count at this stage?

 

Paulmontfort:

What is your floor height in those latest (hm… first ones in fact) buildings… at those in-game pictures by T Wrecks they look a bit too squashed.. especially Conrad…

Should we all come to some sort of agreement on scaling… so that buildings look more in scale with in-game stuff?

Actually that big stage 8 residential – just left of Conrad is my most hated building in game!! It is absolutely out of proportions with ANY of buildings! I can’t believe Maxis putting it in this eyesore!! Were they blind?

[Skyfire2275 23]

@ bixel: Thanks, there's another pic below.

@ SimFox: Both my buildings are scaled as close as possible to real life. The heights (according to the auto-generated LODs) are within 1m of the true height. ~283 m for the CKC and ~255 m for LP. I checked these against the Maxis Bank of China and some of paulvmonfort's towers in the game and both the BOC and paulvmontfort's buildings seem to be scaled to the correct size and do not seem to be vertically stretched. Am I right paulvmontfort?  Or am I wrong? Anyways, for reference, the floors are spaced at more than 4 m on both buildings I am working on.

That Maxis building is nice, but I agree 100% that the scale is off so far that it annoys me!

I think the sunshades are correct now based on the pictures. Anyone else have an opinion?

@ Everyone: The poly count is about 150 000. I added some textures to the roof "junk" and tried something else with the windows... I still have the windows if no one likes these ones. Instead of using arcs, which is not realistic as the windows are flat panes of glass, I used straight lines on all the segments of glass. I think this adds to the realism. What do you think... P.S. I took the texture off for now so that the new shape was more evident. I assume that the texture still works! Click to enlarge!

http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/top_newer.PNG

Comments?

[Monteferro 4]

Skyfire2275: Whoa, your Langham Place is jaw-droppingly gorgeous... I love the attention to details!

Hong Kong: Have you got some pictures of the roof junk on Legco? A couple of closeups would be really good.

Everyone: Thanks for all the encouragements!